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Friday, February 6

Radiohead Grammy Rumor Mill Goes Into Overdrive

Radiohead Grammy Rumor Mill Goes Into Overdrive

While the Radiohead/Lil Wayne/Kanye West Grammy mashup performance still only exists in the deepest reaches of my consciousness, there are other intriguing (and definitely more reality-based) whispers about Radiohead's first Grammy performance ever pinging around the net.

The most believable one has the band playing In Rainbows opener "15 Step" with the help of USC's Marching Band (via At Ease). While there are no big-band flourishes on the LP version of "15 Step", its syncopated rhythm does seem ripe for the big-bass-drum 'n' stand-up-snare treatment. And the Grammys seem to have a thing for marching bands (see: "Hey Ya", "Gold Digger"). Whatever happens, you'll be able to see it go down live on your TV set this Sunday, February 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Other performers include: M.I.A. (hopefully), Coldplay, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Paul McCartney with Dave Grohl, Rihanna, T.I. and Justin Timberlake, U2, Jay-Z, and Katy Perry. I am wildly excited. Then again, I genuinely like Katy Perry.

Posted by Ryan Dombal on February 6, 2009 at 10:15 a.m.

Tags: Award Show, Gossip, Grammys, Radiohead, Thom Yorke

Pink Mountaintops Ready Third Album

"The Gayest of Sunbeams"? Really? Pink Mountaintops Ready Third Album

Pink Mountaintops, the slightly more mellowed-out solo project of Black Mountain frontman Stephen McBean, are set to release their (his?) third album. Jagjaguwar will put out Outside Love on May 5. A whole gang of Beam's friends in the Canadian underground rock mafia showed up to contribute, including Black Mountain members Amber Webber, Matthew Camirand, and Joshua Wells, as well as Jesse Sykes of Sweet Hereafter fame and A Silver Mt. Zion's Sophie Trudeau.

At the moment, Beam's only got one live show lined up, at the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival on May 8 in Minehead, England.

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Prefuse 73 Reveals Bugged-Out Album Cover, Tracklist

But will "Violent Bathroom Exchange" live up to its title? Prefuse 73 Reveals Bugged-Out Album Cover, Tracklist

Last month, we reported that another Prefuse 73 album was among the 58 bazillion new projects that ADD glitch-rap tycoon Guillermo Scott Herren had in the works. Well, now we've got a few details on it. On April 14, Warp will release the truly awkwardly-titled Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian.

The ridiculously awesome, Yes-worthy cover art is above. No word on whether this album will be a conceptual narrative about that robot spaceman's adventures on the freaky-tree planet.

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Cursive to Release Swollen New Album

We're not holding our breath for any happy songs Cursive to Release <i>Swollen</i> New Album

Do you guys realize how long Cursive have been around? Bill Clinton was president when they released their first album. They've been repping Saddle Creek since before Bright Eyes and the Faint and Rilo Kiley were things that people knew or cared about. Odds are they've been making spiky, depressive barroom indie since way before you've been listening to spiky, depressive barroom indie.

And Mama, I'm Swollen, their new, kinda nastily-named album, will be Cursive album number seven. That's a lot of albums Saddle Creek will release it on March 10.

That's the murkily pretty Mama, I'm Swollen cover above, and the tracklist is below. Around the time the album drops, the band will play a few shows.

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Thursday, February 5

Glamour Declares Of Montreal's Poole a Fashion "Don't"

"A little scruff is sexy. Looking like a caveman from head to toe is not. What is that shirt?" <i>Glamour</i> Declares Of Montreal's Poole a Fashion "Don't"

Glamour.com's Dudes & Don'ts is sort of like Vice 's Dos and Don't except not funny (or original). But this men's fashion photo feature turns weird here, when Of Montreal guitarist Bryan Poole, aka the Late BP Helium, shows up. Turns out he's a "Don't".

Here's what Glamour says: "A little scruff is sexy. Looking like a caveman from head to toe is not. What is that shirt?"

Take a look:

Yes, on a normal person leading a normal lifestyle, that look probably wouldn't work. You couldn't really show up at a T.G.I. Friday's after a long, hard day at your realty company wearing that outfit and not expect to get laughed at. But if you show up at an Of Montreal concert in it, you're likely to be considered under dressed .
Which is one of the many reasons we love Of Montreal: they wear ridiculous glammed-out clothes and put on an absurdly over-the-top spectacle. They make a huge effort to entertain their fans. They make all the bands that step on stage in whatever they rolled out of bed in look kinda weak. So this Glamour thing is like putting a photo of Flavor Flav up there and being like, "Eww, a giant clock! Guys, don't do that."

Of course, the Glamour employee who put this feature together probably didn't know that this is a guy whose boss rarely wears pants . And that's OK-- most people in the world don't know what the guitarist from Of Montreal looks like. But we would like to take this opportunity to counter Glamour 's "Don't" with our own "Do." We strongly encourage this kind of rock star style. Can more bands start dressing like Of Montreal, please?

Also, this looks ridiculous.

Posted by Tom Breihan and Amy Phillips on February 5, 2009 at 7:10 p.m.

Tags: Gossip, of Montreal

News in Brief: Max Neuhaus, the Veils, Adam Goldberg/LANDy, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Malajube

News in Brief: Max Neuhaus, the Veils, Adam Goldberg/LANDy, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Malajube

-- Noted percussionist, early electronic music originator, and sound installation art pioneer Max Neuhaus died of cancer in Italy on Tuesday at the age of 69, according to the Houston Chronicle. He may be most famous for his permanent sound installation in New York City's Times Square, which began emanating subtle, mysterious noises in 1977.

-- Perpetually quirky actor Adam Goldberg-- who you may know as the Hebrew Hammer-- is putting out an indie-pop album under the name LANDy. Like the cognac. No wait, that's Landy-- not LANDy. Flaming Lip Steven Drozd guests on the album, which makes sense since Goldberg made an amusing cameo in the Lips film Christmas on Mars. Earlimart's Aaron Espinoza also contributed. The LP, dubbed Everything Must Go, drops April 21 on Apology Music. You can listen to a few tracks from it here.

-- Nick Cave acolytes the Veils will release their third album, Sun Gangs, on April 7 in the U.S. via Rough Trade. The record was produced by Graham Sutton, who's worked with Jarvis Cocker in the past, with one track produced by Bernard Butler. Details can be found at the band's MySpace.

-- Bedroom electro-pop impresario Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is in a nostalgic mood, so he's compiling tracks from various 7" singles and compilations released from 2004-2007 on one CD called Advance Base Battery Life. The record will be out on Tomlab March 10 and includes covers of songs by Paul Simon, Missy Elliott, and Bruce Springsteen.

-- French-Canadian indie rockers Malajube return with Labyrinthes, out this coming Tuesday, February 10, on Dare to Care. They'll hit the road in Canada in February and March.

Posted by Ryan Dombal and Amy Phillips on February 5, 2009 at 5:35 p.m.

Tags: Adam Goldberg, Album, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, LANDy, Malajube, Max Neuhaus, Obituary, The Veils

M.I.A. to Perform at the Grammys?! On Her Due Date?!

This is some must-see TV right here M.I.A. to Perform at the Grammys?! On Her Due Date?!

Photo by Kathryn Yu

Billboard reports (and the show's website confirms) that M.I.A. has been added to the already-jammed roster of performers at this Sunday's Grammy Awards telecast. "Paper Planes" is, of course, nominated for Record of the Year in an uncharacteristic bit of good decision-making on the Grammy folks' part, and the news of M.I.A. getting Grammy-stage shine would be good in any circumstance.

But, uh, M.I.A. is nine months pregnant, and she reported in a MySpace blog post last year that her baby is actually due on Grammy night. This leaves a possibility that M.I.A. will give birth onstage.

Sunday night's big show already had a truly impressive roster of performers lined up, what with Radiohead's first performance on the show as well as U2, Justin Timberlake with T.I., and the "Swagga Like Us" rap Mount Rushmore team-up of Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I. (maybe with M.I.A. too?) But this baby thing really pushes it over the top. No way we're missing this show now, whether or not the Lee "Scratch" Perry thing actually happens.

Posted by Tom Breihan on February 5, 2009 at 3:15 p.m.

Tags: Award Show, Grammys, M.I.A.

Clash of the Titans: Springsteen vs. Ticketmaster

Clash of the Titans: Springsteen vs. Ticketmaster

Don't mess with the Boss-- you will end up begging for forgiveness. Just ask Ticketmaster.

When tickets for some shows on Springsteen's upcoming world tour went on sale on Monday, Ticketmaster took advantage of their monopolistic ways by automatically redirecting Springsteen fans to their own glorified scalping service, TicketsNow. Fans were outraged, and even the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs got involved.

Then, the Boss struck back. A statement from Springsteen, manager Jon Landau, and the Springsteen Tour Team posted on his website said, "The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. [...] Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect 'scalping' those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow-- we do."

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TV on the Radio to Appear on "Colbert", Remix EP Due

Busiest band alive? TV on the Radio to Appear on "Colbert", Remix EP Due

It's good to be TV on the Radio. Critics lose their shit over them on a daily basis. Fans make sure to sell out all their gigs. And the band gets to be on TV, which is even better than being on the radio if you think about it really hard. As previously reported, the Brooklyn band will perform on the popular comedy program "Saturday Night Live" this Saturday night, February 7. They will play Dear Science tracks "Dancing Choose" and "Golden Age". The show will be hosted by Bradley Cooper aka the dickhead from Wedding Crashers aka the least famous person in He's Just Not That Into You. But he was also in that State movie Wet Hot American Summer, so unexpected greatness could be in store. Half full!

Then TVOTR will travel a few short blocks West and bring their peace-hugging lefty blasphemy to "The Colbert Report" this Monday, February 9. They'll do the hyper-rap funk track "Dancing Choose" once more. Apparently, they'll also get nailed by Mr. Colbert in an interview segment-- we're guessing he'll be none too please about songs like that anti-Bush screed or the one about fucking so hard that floors, walls, and beds break into smithereens. Could get ugly.

Then, on February 17, iTunes will release a TV on the Radio remix EP; the tracklist is still being firmed up.

And, since this is TVOTR and they can't sit still for more than five minutes, they're up to all sorts of side projects and one-offs, which you can read about here. The band will reconverge in time for both Coachella and Bonnaroo before heading out on a full summer tour across the U.S. and Europe that's being sussed out as we type. These guys are reaching Lil Wayne levels of productivity here, it's scary.

Posted by Ryan Dombal on February 5, 2009 at 1:10 p.m.

Tags: TV, TV on the Radio

Fucked Up Ready Another Epic 12"

Fucked Up Ready Another Epic 12"

The insanely ambitious Canadian hardcore warriors in Fucked Up are on a very serious roll these days. First, they cranked out The Chemistry of Common Life, one of last year's most viscerally satisfying slabs of posi-rage. Then they played a ridiculous 12-hour show in downtown Manhattan. Indirectly, they inspired this Rob Harvilla article, one of the best pieces of music writing I've read in a long time. And now they're all set to unleash their "Year of the Rat" 12", the third in their series of epic singles based on the Chinese calendar.

The New York label What's Your Rupture? will release "Year of the Rat" on vinyl and digital download on March 24. The A-side is an 11-minute monster jam that the press release compares to old-school space-rockers Hawkwind, of all things. And the B-side, "First Born", is a song about behemoth frontman Pink Eyes-- whose strangulated bark conjures immediate sense-memories of bouncing off fat dudes at VFW Hall punk shows when I was 15-- becoming a father. That guy is going to be such an awesome dad!

What's Your Rupture? also released the last of the band's year-of-the-blank singles, 2007's 18-minute marathon "Year of the Pig", which was sort of like NOFX's "The Decline" except maybe even better. If Fucked Up want to keep on cranking out these gigantic things, I will not complain.

If that wasn't enough, the band is right now in the middle of a North American tour, with British dates to follow. The British trek is the second installment of the Shred Yr Face tour, and finds Fucked Up accompanied by the Bronx and Rolo Tomassi. (The first installment featured Los Campesinos!, No Age, and Times New Viking.) To commemorate the tour, all three bands have recorded exclusive songs for a limited edition 7" which will only be available at independent record stores in the UK. Fucked Up's contribution is a cover of Chain Gang's "Son of Sam".

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